Sales brisk for dinner theatre, Mamma Mia! at Savoy in Glace Bay

Ticket sales are brisk for several upcoming productions at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay. - Cape Breton Post

GLACE BAY, N.S.

Mamma Mia — it might be the only way to describe ticket sales for upcoming shows at the Savoy Theatre.

The Broadway and West End of London hit “Mamma Mia!” isn’t arriving at the Savoy in Glace Bay until the end of June but nearly a third of all tickets have already been sold to the eight-show, weeklong run.

“We’re close to 30 per cent sold right now, which in four days is amazing,” Pam Leader, executive director of the Savoy, said Friday. “I was expecting maybe 10 to 15 per cent on the presale so I’m very happy we’ve exceeded that.”

Leader said the strong advance sale is surprising considering it’s February, a traditionally lean time of year and the fact the actual shows are still more than four months away.

Last week, the Savoy announced that the Neptune production of Mamma Mia! will be staged at the Savoy from June 26 until July 1 with tickets priced at $79.50.

The show uses the ever-popular music of ABBA to tell the story of a daughter’s search for her father on the eve of her wedding. The show will star Cape Bretoner Julie Martell who will play the role of Donna. It is being directed by Jeremy Webb, who just finished directing “Beauty and The Beast.”

Tickets have also been selling quickly for the dinner theatre production, “WKRP In Cape Breton.” Seven shows, which will run from Feb. 14 until March 15, have sold-out and some tickets are still available for the six remaining shows.

“The dinner theatre goes over so great because people want good food and they want to laugh because the world is too crazy,” said Leader.

“Dinner theatre over the last two years has doubled in the revenue that it produces. Colin Appleton writes them, produces them, directs them, he does it all.”

Tickets are still available to “Island Girls,” on April 21-22, which will feature Bette MacDonald, Lucy MacNeil, Heather Rankin and Jenn Sheppard. Leader says she has been getting requests from theatres across Nova Scotia to send the show their way but says that would be nearly impossible.

“Which is easier said than done — when you think of how busy those four ladies are and trying to get them all to commit to a date,” said Leader.

Because of all this, Leader says their next fundraising program, The Road To 100 Years, has been delayed slightly. She says money raised from that program will go towards maintaining the theatre as Cape Breton’s premiere show place.

“The Savoy is not a Glace Bay theatre — it’s a theatre in Glace Bay but it’s a Cape Breton theatre,” said Leader. “I would say 10, maybe 15 per cent of the people who attend are from Glace Bay but the rest are from all over Cape Breton.”

Public support for the theatre is important if it’s to remain open, she added.